


Corpse Kid Coaster

by Fenn (Zanik_of_the_Dorgeshuun)



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Amusement Parks, Disguise, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Missions Gone Wrong, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rollercoasters, still aiming to be mostly lighthearted, surprise gender stuff, what else could you expect from these kids, whoops there's angst and trauma slipping in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-03 18:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15824364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zanik_of_the_Dorgeshuun/pseuds/Fenn
Summary: From book 46:Recently, he had claimed to be “bummed” about not being able to ride the new Monster Coaster at The Gardens.In his words: “What with being officially dead and all now, I’m actually in an F-16D, and I can’t feel a thing. My life is great. Isn’t my life great?”Halloween, the one time of year when there's nothing weird about a dead man walking.An alien, a bird and a dude declared dead hatch a plan to ride a rollercoaster. Because Marco's gotta live it upsomehow.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I finished reading the series just this morning, _time to fill the void with fanfic_

"This is torture!"

The sound of my anguish was loud enough to scare birds out of their trees. Got a reaction from another bird, too. I saw Tobias' red tailfeathers twitch.

"Okay, bad phrasing." Somehow that got a twitch too. His talons adjusted on the perch. "But I'm not wrong! That's the third time they've played that commercial for The Gardens this week!"

<It also played once while you were not here,> Ax informed me.

" _Fourth_ time!" I cried, throwing my hands up in the air. "Why couldn't they have advertised the Monster Coaster _before_ my death certificate got written? Now nobody gets to see my cute face in the souvenir photo!"

<No loss,> said Tobias. <Besides, wouldn't the photo just be you screaming?>

"Me? No way! I got the coaster experience down to a _science._ Ice cool face the whole time. Really impresses the ladies. You pick up the pics, you pick up the chicks."

Ax seemed to be noting this for future reference. His stalk eyes were looking downwards, sincere and studious.

"Doesn't mean jack now," I said, lying back in my beanbag. "As soon as a chick-Controller sees my face, I won't just be fake dead. I'll be deader than that rat over there when Tobias sees it."

<Already seen it,> Tobias said. Of course he had. Those hawk eyes miss nothing. <I'm not hungry. Had a very full breakfast.>

He spared us the details of whatever rabbit or skunk or roadkill he'd eaten.

Still, my diet's not much nicer than his these days. Living in hiding really cuts down your options. The cuisine of the Hork-Bajir valley is more geared to people with a taste for bark. Sometimes the other Animorphs or the Chee bring food for me and my parents. Sometimes I go into the woods and catch something, in morph. Turns out my dad's not bad at campfire cooking.

But sometimes I haven't waited on him to turn my catch over a fire. There have been times when I've ripped off my own raw chunk of meat and filled my animal stomach then and there.

Not exactly the high life.

Still, I had a plan. Something that'd inject a little more normal back into my life living on the low. Problem was, it broke two rules at once and was risky as hell. I'd have to wait for the perfect moment to break it to these guys. But that was fine by me, it gave me some more time to figure out how to pull it off.

While Ax was enraptured by "These Messages" and Tobias explained the concept of a squeegee, I pulled my jacket a little closer around me. It was October, and it was beginning to turn kinda cold.

Huh. October. _Late_ October...

That was another idea. Didn't break either of those rules, and way less complicated.

Yeah. Yeah, I could pull that off.

"Halloween's coming up," I mentioned casually.

<You gonna teach the Hork-Bajir how to trick-or-treat?> Tobias gave me some kind of look. But the red tailed hawk only has one kind of look: the fierce, staring, beaky one.

"They could probably carve a mean jack-o'-lantern," I conceded. "Nah, I'm thinking I could get a costume. One covering my face. Nobody's gonna recognise the living dead kid, and nobody's gonna get between me and the Monster Coaster."

<Your voice is still very distinctive,> Ax remarked. <Especially given how often you make use of it.>

"Says Mister Motormouth Owth Mauf. And the voice is easy, I'll get one of those voice changer masks. Marco? Who's Marco? Only Darth Vader here." I did the heavy breathing to demonstrate, and Ax squinted a stalk eye. "Flawless plan. You guys in?"

Tobias looked at the ground, staring at it as intensely as those eyes stared at everything. I could see him thinking it through, the boy's brain in the bird body. Sure, we'd be screwed if we got caught... but if anyone could understand me on wanting to live a normal human life for a bit, it would be Tobias.

<Alright, Darth Dead Kid, I'm in.>

"Ax?"

He nodded. <It seems relatively safe. And I know The Gardens has many types of delicious food on sale.>

<I guess we're doing this,> Tobias said. Kinda less motivating than his girlfriend's battle cry, but close enough. <Corpse kid on a coaster. Happy Halloween.>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> august isn't too early to start writing a halloween fic right


	2. Chapter 2

We could return the Darth Vader costume to the shop afterwards. It'd be like we never took it. All ready for people's November 1st parties, or maybe a Star Wars-themed Thanksgiving.

The Gardens is not cheap. I could have paid the ticket price if I saved up three weeks of my allowance, but video games always seemed to get in the way of that. Besides, my dad's new job was working for the Hork-Bajir colony. That paid in nothing but happy aliens, and you can't trade three smiles from the Hamee family for theme park tickets.

Didn't matter. We had a different way in.

You'd be surprised at how well a gorilla can pitch. I've never tried [playing baseball in morph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu4x8U_PLJA), but it can't be too different from catapulting a bag of clothes (complete with carefully bundled-up Darth Vader mask) over a theme park's fence.

<Strikeout,> I thought, as the bag landed on the other side with a satisfying CLOMP.

I demorphed and remorphed as a seagull, perfect for sneaking in and not looking out of place. It took a good deal of effort to not divebomb any unprotected bags of fries, but my impeccable self-control won out in the end. There were a ton of fries to be had on the other side. Definitely more fun to eat as a human being than as a seagull.

Tobias and Ax were already in human morph, and had the bag of clothes (minus the ones they were wearing) waiting for me when I flew in through the bathroom window.

I entered the stall as a seagull... and emerged as Darth Vader, humming his theme tune as I made my grand entrance. The voice changer mask made it weird and scratchy, which kinda ruined it.

"I need to get myself a private orchestra," I muttered. "Just for moments like this."

Tobias' face was blank, as his human face basically always was. Ax was expressionless too, though the blinky spring-mounted eyes on the headband he was wearing were doing plenty of expressing for him. He'd grabbed that headband for himself in The Great Costume Store Heist. He'd said he <found it amusing>.

Tobias had no costume, just jeans and a T-shirt. I'd asked him if he wanted anything. He'd said nothing would fit. I'd said what, come on, your own specific brand of tall and lanky can't be too hard to find costumes for. He hadn't replied, and I'd put that down to the fact that we were hauling butt out of the costume store at the time.

Now I kinda suspected that he might have meant it differently. The detached way he acted in his own body, you'd think he was just as alien to it as Ax. More so, even. Ax in his human morph was on a fun vacation. Tobias just wanted to go home.

Or maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe being able to literally change into other things had made just dressing up kinda boring by comparison.

Too much thinking, not enough theme park! "Come on guys," I said, taking the lead. "We've got a coaster to find."

"Can't we sample some of The Gardens' varieties of food first? Foooooo-duh?"

"Oh, Ax. Ax! Ax-man, buddy." Someone had to teach the human vacationer how things worked around here. "You _never_ eat food just before the rides. You do that, you'll be discovering a thing mouths do that you'll never want to do again."

"Why would I not want to do that? I want to try everything that human mouths are capable of doing," Ax insisted.

"Trust me, you don't," Tobias assured him, and I knew Ax would take Tobias' word for it even if he wouldn't take mine.

Ax nodded, sending his goofy headband stalk eyes into jittery blinking in the process. "Then it is time for the Monster Coaster."


	3. Chapter 3

"Eager Beaver Log Flume. Flooooooooom. Flumuh." 

We'd been to the zoo part of The Gardens a lot for acquiring morphs, but the rides were mostly unfamiliar to Ax and Tobias.

And to me. Man, they'd really changed this place around in the years since I'd been here. The Eager Beaver Log Flume used to be a terrifying death drop into what was basically an entire ocean. Now it just looked like a kiddy ride.

Maybe I was the one who'd changed.

"Is the Eager Beaver Log Flooooom simply a way for humans to be covered in water at high velocity?" Ax observed, watching the log chug lazily along to the top of the peak and then begin its disappointing drop.

"Depends what you count as 'high velocity'," Tobias replied. "I've seen clumsy old pigeons dive faster than that."

"I fail to see how this would be enjoyable," Ax said in a faintly condescending tone. "Perhaps it appeals to something in humans."

I felt the need to defend my species against this Andalite's misguided attacks. "Hey, don't judge the human race on our kiddy rides," I wheezed through the Vader mask. "Judge our kids, maybe, but they don't know _real_ fun. Real fun is over _there_."

Three loops rose above the rest of the park. Spines and scales in red, purple and black adorned the rollercoaster's tracks. I watched as the empty cart at the beginning of the ride filled up with people, as the harnesses came down down over their heads, as the red light seared to maximum intensity... and as the acceleration shot them off at lightning speed into the monster's gaping maw.

I clapped Ax on the shoulder with one black gloved hand, pointing him towards it. "0 to 60 in two and a half seconds. Now _that's_ high velocity."

"Are you kidding? Seatbelts? Harnesses? Try feeling it on your feathers."

"Try feeling it in your hair," I shot back. "Sad, wingless humans get to have fun sometimes too. We can't all be birds."

Tobias looked at me, squinting with his 'inferior' human eyes. " _We_ can," he said, under his breath to not be heard. Not like that was likely in all the noise of The Gardens. There were far more than enough noise-making kids in costumes to ensure that we couldn't easily be overheard.

"Can a bird stand in line for hours on end, licking what's left of their half-melted ice cream, listening to the 30 second loop of cheesy music on repeat until it drives them stir crazy? And then experience the sweet, sweet relief of reaching the ride itself? I'm telling you, man, that's half the joy of it."

"You're really not selling me on this, you know."

We noticed that Ax had been moving away from us. He'd wandered closer to the Monster Coaster, so we semi-sprinted to catch up--

\-- and I went sprawling into a girl dressed as Luke Skywalker, knocking her to the ground with her lightsaber getting tangled in my cape. "Thanks, _Dad_ ," she said, half joking and half actually getting mad at me. Tobias stood to the side, observing.

I slipped off a glove and helped steady her up, my bare hand on hers. She calmed down almost instantly. I knew why.

Back to Ax. "I'm timing how long it takes between one boarding and the next," he said as we reached his side. "The group we saw beginning their ride is just finishing now. I estimate that each ride takes approximately four minutes and forty seconds. For reference, Tobias and I have spent eighteen minutes in morph."

"So if you guys are coming with me," I said, "then we'd better be in one of the next twenty-ish groups getting on. We probably want that number to be something less than twenty, or we're cutting it close." I stood on tiptoes to get a better look at the line. Half of it was enclosed, so there was no real way to tell how long it was, but... "Lot of people going on at once. It looks pretty quick, right?" It didn't.

"I'm not risking being trapped in this body." There was a rising edge of tension to Tobias' voice. He was staring at something up there, and I couldn't tell what. His total lack of expression didn't help at all.

"What's up there, Tobias? Someone in the line got a nice butt? You gotta tell me these things! Can't give birds a monopoly on butt-viewing."

He didn't respond. I saw the red light reflected in his eyes.

"Race to the front with the Sprint Ticket!" Ax exclaimed.

"Huh?" Then I saw what he was reading. While Tobias was looking off into the distance, Ax had seen something closer: a sign for a separate line, blocked by a turnstile but with a beautifully empty line ahead of it. I got closer to read the rest of the sign. "$7.50 for a Sprint Ticket... get them from the front desk... hmm."

It looked like not many people were making use of that. I guess people would rather join the line right there than trek all the way back to the front desk. Or just didn't want to pay more.

"Tobias?" I asked. He didn't answer. I went in front of him and stood on tiptoes to block his line of sight: "Tobias?"

He blinked. <Huh?>

I nodded at the Sprint Ticket sign.

<You're not going to steal Sprint Tickets, are you? You can't really return those like you can with a Darth Vader costume.> I barely noticed that he'd slipped into thoughtspeak. It was weird to hear it from his human morph.

" _Steal?_ Me?"

<Well, the costumes-->

"Are borrowed."

<Right.> He paused. <Gonna sneak past the turnstile?>

"Hey! What's with the assumption that I was gonna do this illegally?" I pulled out $20 from the costume's pocket. "I kinda told my dad what we were doing. He gave me some of the cash he'd brought with him. Not enough for admission, just food and souvenirs or whatever. He said I've been fighting long enough, I could do with something nice."

<Huh.> I guess at this point Tobias realised his lips hadn't been moving. "Huh."

Not for the first time, I kinda wished I'd been able to bring my dad along. And my mom. We hadn't done something like this as a family in years.

They couldn't morph, though. Couldn't get them in via our "alternative" route, and far harder to get them out if something went wrong. And if someone caught the host body of the former Visser One...

While I was getting distracted, Ax pointed out the obvious. "This money is only sufficient for two Sprint Tickets."

"I'll be fine," Tobias said quickly. "This basically looks like a cheap and tacky imitation of the stunts I can pull off any day of the week. Sure, I missed out on this as a kid, but when I grew up to be a bird..." He shrugged, the motion looking kinda unnatural on him.

Yeah, I didn't believe he was 100% fine with this. And he probably realised that.

But was I gonna give this up for him? So the bird boy could have a family day out with an uncle who actually cared about him more than jack squat? I mean, he and Ax weren't legally dead. They could sneak in here in morph any day of the week, if they really wanted to. Come back at a less busy time, when the line for the Monster Coaster wouldn't be two hours long.

Me? This was my one shot at being a normal kid, having a normal Halloween. My one shot before the war ended... and I couldn't count on making it through.

"We could go on something with a shorter line after this," I said, to appease him. "And you two could even come back some other time. The lines are basically nothing in the morning."

"Sure," he said.

His face was as inscrutable as ever. It maddened me.


	4. Chapter 4

Darth Vader himself approached the booth. On one side of him was a teenager in the body of a hawk in the body of a teenager. On the other was an alien pretending to be a human pretending to be an alien.

"Hey, can I get two Sprint Tickets?" Darth Vader said.

"Sure," said the cashier, not batting an eyelid (as opposed to the blinky eyes on Ax's headband, which were batting their eyelids for all they were worth). It was Halloween, kids in costumes were everywhere, and we were nowhere near the weirdest guys around... not by our looks, anyway.

We collected our tickets, and the three of us turned to head back to the Monster Coaster--

"Ooga booga!" screeched a high-pitched voice out of nowhere.

I spun round, my cape swishing for unintended dramatic effect. There was Ax, his two human eyes darting around in confusion. Finally he saw the kid who'd just twanged one of his springy eyes -- a kid who just so happened to be wearing the same headband eyes.

"Ah, I see you are the same species as me," Ax said, brusquely repeating the "sheez" of "species" under his breath.

"Ooga booga yes!" the kid grinned. He was definitely some years younger than us. He walked off laughing, accompanied by some older kid. I thought about catching up with him... but nah, he'd be too short for the Monster Coaster. I was short enough already. I didn't wanna risk shorter.

Ax seemed kinda unsettled. Hostile, almost. "I know these are plastic," he said, gingerly brushing one eye with his fingers (and sending it into another manic fit of blinking). "But that came very close to insulting behaviour." I'd spent enough time around Ax to know that if he'd had his tail, it'd be raised.

"Different standards," I shrugged. "Human kid sees a spring, you'd better believe they're gonna spring it."

Ax put a cautious hand back up to the springy eye, drew it back with a slender finger, and... let it spring back and forth, knocking into the other eye and sending both of them into blinky madness.

His expression was half-smile, half-confusion. "That is a _very_ weird sensation," he said. And then he did it again.

* * *

We made it back up to the Monster Coaster. Tobias would be waiting for us as we got off, and for now, was sort of loitering around the exit.

The thing with Tobias, though, was that he didn't know how to loiter. He was always on guard for some thing or another. A loitering Tobias looked less like a disaffected teen and more like an underaged spy. But even then, he only hit "weird kid" levels of weirdness. Nobody was gonna walk past and suss out that the reason for his odd watchfulness was his day job as a bird of prey.

I fed my ticket into the turnstile. It came out the other side with holes punched, I guess if people wanted a souvenir or something. Ax came next, got a little stuck in the turnstile, but I managed to pull him through. And from there, it was a simple walk along our separate line, marching on by as the dozens of others waited helplessly in the normal line.

"This is what it's like to be royalty," I bragged to Ax. Probably kinda mean, saying that in clear earshot of all the people waiting. But hey, I was Darth Vader. That's basically one of the least worst things I've done.

At long last, we'd reached the front. As soon as the last load of thrill-seekers came back round, it'd be our turn, and Ax and I would get the ride of our life. With no further complications whatsoever. Right?

"Please remove your headwear," said the ride attendant behind the desk.

"Wait, what?" I wheezed through the Vader mask. I wasn't budging, and nor was Ax with his googly-eyed headwear.

The attendant -- a tall black woman with straightened hair -- pointed to a sign on the wall. Sure enough, 'no headwear' was on the list. "Sorry, kids. Gotta do this. Rules apply to everyone, even on Halloween."

"What if I take my gloves off?" I asked, doing so as I spoke. "Would that be a fair compromise?"

She looked at me funny. "No, sir, not at all. Your headwear, please." She sighed. "It's a nice mask. But we've got lockers. You'll get it back in one piece."

One of the other attendants was giving us a look. There were only two seats that hadn't been filled yet, and I knew they were meant for the googly-eyed kid and the Sith Lord who were holding up the ride.

For a moment, I considered taking off the mask... and then I saw the kid from my math class. Even if he wasn't a Controller, I knew that kid. A glimpse of my real face would start rumours. Rumours would be heard by humans and human-Controllers alike, and considering the circumstances in which I'd faked my own death? Rumours would cause suspicion. Risk. The risk of an end to everything.

"I'm sorry, I can't take this mask off," I said. Good thing I had that backup plan. I'd already done most of my preparation. Just one more thing I needed. "Can we have new Sprint Tickets please? Because I don't want to use them on a ride with restrictions this harsh."

"Well, okay," she said, pulling out two from under the desk and sliding them across to me. "But you're gonna have a hard time finding..."

Her voice kinda trailed off as I put my hands on hers. I could see her eyes getting a little droopy. And I felt Ax watching me from behind, knowing exactly what I was doing.

I took the new tickets. "Where's the exit?"

She looked around, dazed, holding a wobbly finger out to point... "There. Yeah. See ya."

As we left the ride, I deliberately avoided Ax's eyes. I knew the look he was giving me.


	5. Chapter 5

<You acquired her,> Ax stated. His thought-speak tone was a sort of forced neutral.

 I knew he'd included Tobias in his thought-speak, because at that moment his head jerked round to us. <Acquired who?>

<There was a woman handling the people boarding the Monster Coaster. She refused to let Marco ride while wearing his mask, so Marco acquired her. Now, I presume he wishes to morph her in order to ride.>

I interjected before Tobias could get in on judging me. "Hey, hey. Come on, guys. You think I'm gonna walk right in there, looking like a mirror image of that ride attendant, while she's still around? There's no way that's ending well, not unless she's got an identical twin. An identical twin who's the kind of person to rides rollercoasters dressed as Darth Vader."

<But you still acquired her. Without her consent,> Tobias added. <There's gotta be a reason for that.>

I was beginning to feel a little left out, being the only one who couldn't use thought-speak. I'd fix that soon.

"I've always got a reason, man," I said. "I'll show you. But first, I gotta go to the bathroom."

* * *

The stall was kinda cramped, but good enough for this morph. It wasn't like I was morphing rhino, after all.

I kinda knew how to do this. By 'kinda', I mean I'd done it before, accidentally, and ended up as a mashup of several different animals at once. I'm not a fan of the mix-and-match Mr Potato Head look, so I was gonna try to be a little more careful this time.

How was I even meant to begin? Usually, with a morph, you picture what you want to be, sort of overlay that on yourself, and it happens. But this was two different "what you want to be", and I had no idea what the combination might look like.

I pictured both, side by side. The tired ride attendant and the Luke Skywalker kid. Two would make it easy to recognise the traits of each one, but hey, better that I look like them than looking like a kid who's meant to be dead. Even if anyone did recognise any aspect of them, they'd probably just assume I was a relative.

It wasn't an easy morph. I felt parts of my body coming out as one set of DNA instead of both, and had to focus on them to make sure they played along. I grew taller -- yes! -- and felt certain parts of my body grow a little wider, stretching the one-size-fits-all costume but not straining it (much). I could tell the pants were getting shorter on my legs, though, leaving some of my calves exposed at the bottom. Rachel probably had a name for that type of style, but that wasn't really on my mind just then. I was just glad the clothes hadn't made like Bruce Banner's. Even if I wasn't gonna end up as the Hulk.

I sorta wondered if you could do this combo morph on a really beefy dude and an animal with green skin.

I took off my gloves. The skin was lightening on one hand and darkening on the other, which probably needed fixing. I focused on a blend of the two, and both hands eased into a mid tone, a few shades darker than how my skin usually looked. I made sure to hold that colour in mind for the rest of my skin, too.

I realised I'd kept the helmet on. I took it off, and saw semi-curly hair come down in front of my eyes. I guess the attendant's DNA didn't have straightened hair. The hair was black, which I could've pushed closer to the blonde hair 'Luke' had, but I didn't really care. It was _a_ hair colour. As long as it wasn't a different colour on the back half of my head, I was fine... and even if it was, I could always explain it away as fashion.

<Alright, guys,> I said to Tobias and Ax, glad to have thought-speak now. They were in the same bathroom, having demorphed and remorphed to reset their two-hour timers. <Check it out.>

I stepped out of the stall, and caught sight of myself in the mirrors on the opposite wall. I'd managed to blend both of them into a normal-looking human... and a _hot_ one. One just a little older than I was. Probably not drinking age, but old enough to be clocked as an adult instead of a teen.

Man, I could have _fun_ with this morph. _So much fun._ I could buy M-rated games without ID!

<Oh, wow!> Tobias exclaimed. <It's the closest Marco's ever gonna get to a hot woman!>

"Well, yeah. I think it's literally impossible to get closer to someone than being them." The voice was weird to hear out of my mouth, but man, I _loved_ it. "But if anyone's gonna manage getting closer, it's me." I fluttered my eyelashes for effect. Somehow this face had less eyelash than I usually had. I made a mental note to sneak some of Rachel's mascara. Wouldn't be happening today, but I'd be down to try that some other time.

Wait. Was I seriously thinking about trying on makeup? I told myself it was probably the girl hormones, then tried to think about literally anything else.

Luckily, Ax beat me to it. <You may not resemble the woman exactly, but you are still using her DNA without consent.> He frowned, the expression exaggerated on his face. Like he was a clown doing funny faces. Or, say, an alien not used to having a mouth. <For a non-essential mission.>

<What, me riding the Monster Coaster is "non-essential"?>

<It'd stop him yelling whenever that commercial is on,> Tobias reasoned, then added: <Or her, I guess.>

"Either one works," I answered, even though it wasn't really a question. "Besides, it's not like this woman's gonna know. Or be affected in basically any way."

Ax shrugged. "You have a point." He lingered on the pointy T sound at the end. "Perhaps we must make these small sacrifices for the sake of uninterrupted TV-watching," he said with a small smirk.

Just then, I heard the door open. A man came into the bathroom, stopped in his tracks on seeing us, and wolf-whistled. "I'll find another one," he said quickly, and left.

Oh. Right. Woman in the men's bathroom... with two guys.

"Let's get out of here," I said, and the others agreed.


End file.
